Raised Waffles with Beef Shin and Mushroom Ragu & Gremolata

Do you like this? Huh? You do, don’t you? And it is a little confusing, isn’t it? Is that breakfast colliding with dinner? Just a bit, but as a flavour and texture combination, it is sensational.

Let me tell you how to spend a glorious weekend afternoon. Maybe one with the rain dragging outside, better again, a day with that horizontal rain that drives into your face and makes the outdoors utterly inhospitable. One of those days that is best approached in pyjamas and a big jumper, slippers and no desire to do anything but stay inside. A day, like this one, is a day for ragu.

A slow cooked ragu is a tremendous pleasure. It is the perfect way to spend such an idle afternoon. Your ragu cooks slowly, and melts into itself, while you watch a film or read a book, and have a glass (or two) of wine. This ragu is gorgeous, succulent, rich and yielding. Spiked with gremolata (garlic, parsley and lemon zest, all chopped very fine and mixed together), the whole thing jumps to life in an instant. I make a big batch, and eat the leftovers with papardelle, in a pie, or on toast.

Homemade Raised Waffles

If you are still conflicted by ragu with waffles, think chicken and waffles, that Harlem dish of yore and still very popular in the US of A. Waffles don’t have to be sweet, and these raised waffles have the same amount of sugar as salt for a batter that will make at least 8 – 10 waffles, just a teaspoon. Their crisp fluffiness is perfect with ragu. It is such a soulful dinner.

Enjoy, and do tell me how you like it. All comments are read, and answered :)

Lets do this!

Note: only use a wine that you would drink for cooking. Bad wine makes for bad sauce, don’t do it.

Recipe: Raised Waffles with Beef and Mushroom Ragu

Serves 4 (but make for one or two, and freeze the leftovers, or eat the next day. You won’t regret it)

the waffle batter needs to be left overnight but cooks in minutes, the ragu takes 3.5 hours

Waffles – please follow the recipe in the previous post, allowing overnight time for the batter to raise. Cook them in the last half an hour of the recipe and keep warm in the oven, or prepare in advance and reheat as you need them in a frying pan or in the oven.

Ragu –

Dust the diced beef in flour and brown over a medium heat in 1 tbsp butter & 1 tbsp oil in two batches. If you fry it all together it will just stew and not brown, unless you have a very big pan.

Put the beef to the side, and saute the diced bacon until starting to crisp. Leave to the side with the beef.

Saute the carrots and shallots over a low – medium heat in another tbsp of butter and oil until starting to soften (about 8 – 10 minutes). Add the garlic for a minute, and then add the beef, bacon, chilli, red wine and bay leaves. Increase the heat to drive out the alcohol and after a couple of minutes, add the stock, bring to the boil, reduce the heat and leave to simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for 2.5 hours.

I cook the mushrooms separately in butter at this point, as I think mushrooms and butter are a glorious combination. Saute them with the remaining butter and oil until starting to soften, then add them to the ragu and cook for another 15 minutes.

Gremolata –

Prepare your gremolata in this time by preparing and combining all ingredients.

Taste your ragu. At this point the meat should be very tender, if it isn’t give it a bit longer. Season with sea salt as appropriate and serve on hot waffles with gremolata on top (as per the picture).

I haven’t but I think for the sake of £15, invest in a little waffle iron. The joy of the waffles is all of the holes that suck up the sauce / maple syrup etc. And with this yeasted recipe, they are extra crispy. If you look two posts back I have links to the ones that I tried, all available online :)

Scrummy! I’ve never made waffles as I don’t have a waffle maker, but I adore fat pancakes which sort of approximate, right? I don’t think my kitchen could hold any more gadgets!
The beefy mushroom mix looks perfect for this time of year, very warming :)

Recently made a slow braised beef dish and realised just at the point of ingredient assembly that the only mushrooms i had were shiitaki and bunashimeji. Bunged them in anyway, and was very pleased with how they came out – the larger ones really stood up to the long slow cooking and still had interesting texture, and the little ones just melted into the sauce. Not sure they’d quite go with waffles though, they did give a definite edge of ‘Asian’ to the dish, and as I always put star anise in with my beef as well, it was all leaning to the East …

They would be lovely and actually I was planning on using them in mine as they are so full flavoured but just went with what I had at the last minute. The waffles are savoury and very plain so they are perfect with a sauce such as this, or as you describe :)